Wes Phillips

Well, the last time I was in Peru, I bought a piece of eight because I heard that's what Brian May uses as a pick—but that was only 400 years old and only cost about $4. These picks, made from meteorites, are 4.5 billion years old and cost over $100.

The law of unintended consequences, that is. It seems that, as the Mega Lo Marts introduce auto-scanning checkout kiosks to feed customers through more "efficiently," people are buying fewer of those impulsive point-of-purchase items.

"What is the greatest possible area for a sofa S that can be moved around a right-angled corner in a hallway of unit width? It's assumed only that S is a connected region of the plane."

I've never been a huge New York Dolls fan, but I like the energy of this single—and I love the cameo by the Flying Spaghetti Monster at the end of the clip.

"Leeds Memory Group researchers say they have gone some way to recreating the sensation [of deja vu] in the lab using hypnosis."

Over at Home Theater's website, Fleischmann's arch blend of understatement and geekiness is the sort of stuff I wish I could write consistently. A recommended daily read. Yes, I know him, and yes, I share an employer with him, but this encomium comes from the heart.

The Register reports that scientists have developed a material with a negative refractive index, which means it causes light to bounce off it "backwards" at speeds that "appear faster than the speed of light."